Night and Day
by caffeineaddict13
Summary: Rosalie lets out a quiet snort. “Sounds a bit like Emmett.” Leah and Rosalie discuss Jacob. Kind of.


**A/N:** Because everybody knows Leah got the short end of the stick. And she deserves more screen time. Plus, the friendship was kinda inevitable.

--

Leah stretches her long neck and scratches a mosquito bite, her muscular arms flexing, her dark eyes wide and uninterrupted by the moonlight.

"I just don't get it," she says, turning to the tall blonde next to her.

When Leah had gone out for a run that night, she hadn't expected to end up sitting in the forest spilling her guts to Rosalie Hale.

Physically, the two could not be more different. While Leah is dark, small and strong in an angry way, Rosalie is as pale as the stars, lean and tall with soft curves and (usually) golden eyes.

But there is something about the expression on the eternally-eighteen-year-old's face that is not that much different from her own. Rosalie may be her mortal enemy, but in another life, in another world, Leah could easily imagine them being friends.

Rosalie nods and purses her perfect lips. "Me either," she says, rolling her eyes. "I mean, as pathetically obsessed as the kid was, I kind of had a feeling that he would work it out in the end."

Leah clenches her fists. "It's not the imprinting that bothers me so much," she says, trying to explain (_wanting_ to explain). "He can't control that part. It's just that Jacob has always been one of the _good_ ones, you know? He backed me up even though I'm such a bitch, and he's strong enough to, as corny as it sounds, _fight _for what he believes in."

The lighter girl stares at Leah with heavy-lidded eyes (her one imperfection—she always looked like she was just a little bit drunk) and clicked her tongue. "So you thought he would…_fight _for his love?"

They look at each other and both burst out into deep cackles, and from anyone else's point of view it probably would have looked normal—two girlfriends chuckling over a joke, retelling memories, being _alive_. But neither one was living, not even partly, because Leah had more death inside of her than even broken Rosalie could imagine.

They calm down eventually, and Leah shakes her head against the subsiding laughs. "No, I just meant…well, if _I_ ever imprint, there is no fucking _way_ I'm just gonna _accept_ it. I mean, what if the guy is some lazy jerk that makes me do all the housework while he sits on his ass watching football games?"

Rosalie lets out a quiet snort. "Sounds a bit like Emmett," she mutters, but her tone is not serious.

"All I'm _saying_," Leah grunts, leaning back against a tree trunk, "is that I'd like to at least have a _choice_. I'd rather be a lonely bitter bitch than be _forced_ to love someone. And I thought Jacob felt the same way."

Rosalie shakes her head. "Well, the thing is that you _haven't_ imprinted. Maybe there _isn't_ a way to fight it. Maybe underneath the creepy pedo servitude shit, the mutt is still pining over little Miss Perfect."

Leah bites her lip, ignores the insults as she thinks it through. She had assumed that Jacob really had become some android; some robotic toy for Cupid to mess with, a breeding machine for the elders. She hadn't thought that maybe he _didn't_ like it; the fact that he was stuck _loving_ someone that, in any normal world, he should be absolutely _disgusted_ with. She hadn't thought that maybe he was as confused and broken as she was.

"Do you think he misses her?" she asks suddenly, and Rosalie shrugs.

"I've been dead for over a hundred years, and I still miss feeling _full_."

Leah nods. "Do you…" she debates whether or not to ask the question. Rosalie isn't known for her trustworthiness, nor for her compassion. But then again, neither is Leah. "Do you think that…maybe, if he really tried, he could've _made_ her love him?"

Rosalie looks confused for a second, but Leah doesn't need to explain. Her eyes are sad and empty and they reflect her dead heart, her restless pain. Sam's face flashes into her head, and she scoffs as she tries to wipe away the tears before Rosalie can see. Because Leah can not hope to live in a world where _Jacob_ never even had a _chance_.

"I think," Rosalie says, choosing her words carefully, "that she always loved him. I think that if she had really thought about it, she would have chosen differently. I think that if things had a gone the way they were _supposed_ to, that if there _was_ no blood or death or magic to mess things up, I think that Renesmee would be her and _Jacob's_ child."

Leah feels a strange relief wash over her and Rosalie crinkles her perfect nose. "Man," she mutters, "that would be _seriously_ fucked up."

The darker girl nods her head and they sit in silence, imagining all the different paths they could've taken. Imagining all the ways things were _supposed_ to go.

In the end, Leah thinks, at least she is still kind of human.

That's a plus.

--

**END**


End file.
